Skip to main content
Main

Veal Ceoguettes

Veal and ham meatballs cooked in milk or cream, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Ceoguettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the meat mixture

  1. Combine minced veal, ham, onion, mace, parsley, pepper, and salt in a chopping bowl.

  2. Heat milk or cream until boiling.

  3. Stir in cold butter and the meat mixture.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix them with corn-starch or flour.

  5. Add the egg mixture to the meat mixture.

  6. Cook the mixture for about 10 minutes, stirring carefully while cooking.

  7. Remove the mixture from heat.

Cool and shape

  1. Spread the mixture on a platter and let it cool.

  2. Roll the cooled mixture into balls.

  3. Flatten each ball.

  4. Dip each flattened ball in egg and bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls in hot lard until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meaty body and bulk of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the balls together.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture, keeping the filling tender.
Corn-starch or flour
Thickens the mixture so it firms up enough to shape and hold.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and extra richness to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Cooling before shaping. The mixture must cool and firm up before it is rolled and flattened; warm filling is soft and sticky and will not hold its shape or coat evenly with egg and crumbs.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, parsley, pepper, milk, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, parsley, pepper, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipes